# Rituals — Cloudscape

> - Cloudscape is a 2025 limited-edition EDP from the Dutch wellness-and-bodycare house Rituals, the fragrance centerpiece of its "Dream Collection." Composed by Marine Mercé and pitched as a "warm gour

## Essence
- Cloudscape is a 2025 limited-edition EDP from the Dutch wellness-and-bodycare house Rituals, the fragrance centerpiece of its "Dream Collection." Composed by Marine Mercé and pitched as a "warm gourmand" evoking endless summer nights under the stars, it opens on a burst of boozy rum and white peach, moves through a creamy tuberose, and settles into vanilla, sandalwood, and musk. It punches above Rituals' usual mainline standard on longevity and has drawn a surprising volume of goodwill — and an equally loud "generic, synthetic, smelled-it-before" backlash. The single most repeated wearers touchstone is that it smells strikingly like Prada Paradoxe.

## Scent Profile
- The opening is the most distinctive and, for some, the most divisive moment: a strong, sweet-and-spicy rum note that hits hard for a few seconds — "so strong it felt as if I had just returned from a party" — before the alcohol burns off. What follows is a creamy, powdery white-peach-and-floral blend: the peach is mild and velvety, sweetening and freshening rather than dominating. The tuberose is muted and well-behaved — several wearers barely register it ("I'm not getting much of the tuberose"), while others find it "perfectly balanced." The drydown is a soft, slightly powdery, "just-out-of-the-shower clean" vanilla-sandalwood-musk with tonka-like creaminess and a light soapiness from the musk. Development is fast and shallow: "after just a few minutes the scent is in the drydown and hardly changes anymore." The through-line is a creamy peach-vanilla with a rum accent — pleasant, cozy, easy, and, by consensus, not remotely novel. Critics call it "synthetic homogeneous mush" once it settles; fans call it "peaches on rum...a dessert after dinner." A minority get an opening that reads sharply synthetic or even headache-inducing.

## Performance
- Notably strong for a Rituals fragrance — this is the recurring point of praise. Where the house's mainline scents are known for weak longevity, Cloudscape delivered real staying power for many: one wearer "could get whiffs of it from my wrists seven hours into wearing it," while another reported "it staid 5 hours on my skin, at this point it almost faded away." Sillage is reported as good but not overpowering, occasionally "surprisingly strong" in the opening with a "hint of artificiality" that a few found headache-inducing on first spray. Dissenters exist — some available coverage users found "sillage and longevity are underground" and the scent gone to a synthetic wisp within 30 minutes — so results vary by skin. Overall: above Rituals' baseline, best applied moderately since the synthetic opening can be intense up close.

## Wearing Context
- Designed and best used as a spring/summer, warm-weather scent, and — by the brand's own framing and wearers agreement — a relaxing, personal, wind-down fragrance: "a personal relax scent, like before sleep or a wellness girl activity," "perfect for a morning in the office," easy to wear "without fear of overapplication." Unisex but leaning feminine-friendly and youthful-cozy. Casual, everyday, comfort-driven contexts (home, office, brunch, garden) rather than formal or seductive evening wear. Multiple wearers report compliments despite its simplicity.

## Comparisons & DNA
- The dominant comparison, cited repeatedly and independently, is Prada Paradoxe — "very VERY similar...I immediately thought of it when I sniffed the perfume" — placing Cloudscape in the creamy-musky-floral-with-a-twist lane, here sweetened with rum and peach. Others reach for Marc Jacobs Daisy Dream ("it feels like a cheap copy of that"), Ariana Grande Cloud (the sharp synthetic-vanilla opening triggered "an immediate flashback of Cloud"), and Mugler Alien (invoked for its love-it-or-hate-it, chemistry-dependent intensity). Several dismiss it as indistinguishable from fabric softener ("any fabric softener labeled 'Summer Blossom'") or generic designer shelf-fillers. The DNA, in short: a mainstream creamy-sweet peach-vanilla-musk with a rum gimmick, echoing several 2020s pink-gourmand-adjacent designers rather than breaking new ground.

## Reception
- Divided, with an unusually wide spread. The enthusiastic camp is effusive — "qualitative, would give 20 if I could," "love at first sniff," praising the peach-rum balance, the grown-up-yet-playful clean vibe, and (repeatedly) the compliment performance and above-Rituals longevity. Defenders note the low wearers rating undersells it: "a step above some of Rituals' mainline perfumes...a solid choice for an everyday scent." The critical camp is blunt: "0815 DNA that everyone has smelled many times before...you can get something like this for a tenth of the price in any drugstore," "juicy and quite generic," "synthetic homogeneous mush." An interesting recurring meta-criticism: several find the collection's room spray and shower foam more successful than the perfume itself — the scent "works better in those forms than as a personal fragrance." The polarization axis is novelty-seeking versus comfort-seeking: niche-oriented wearers find it boringly familiar, while those wanting an easy cozy crowd-pleaser are delighted. Given the modest price it's a reasonable blind buy for fans of creamy sweet peach-vanilla scents, but sample if you're sensitive to synthetic openings.

## Versions & Reformulation
- Single composition. Released as a limited edition within the Dream Collection; now sold out / effectively discontinued at Rituals retail and appearing on secondary markets like eBay as "rare/discontinued." No reformulations.

## Acquisition Notes
- Accessible/affordable tier. Launched at $70 USD / around $69 for 50ml and $26 for a 15ml, with the wider Dream Collection including a hair & body mist, whipped shower foam, body scrub, scented candle, hand wash, and lip oil (many scented with a related sheer-jasmine/orris/sandalwood/musk accord rather than identical to the EDP). As a sold-out limited edition, full bottles now trade on eBay and resale channels, sometimes bundled with the 15ml bonus, at a premium to original retail. Buy from remaining Rituals stock or the collection's bodycare items while available; verify seller reputation on secondary markets. Rituals' AI-generated ad art for the launch drew wearers criticism, unrelated to authenticity.

## Notable Facts & Lore
- - Per Rituals' official copy, perfumer Marine Mercé "found inspiration in Ludovico Einaudi's Experience," framing Cloudscape around "the nostalgia of seemingly endless summer nights full of possibilities...out until the first light of dawn." It anchors Rituals' Dream Collection, a sleep/relaxation-themed line (complete with a "dream journal," blue daisy and moonstone bodycare ingredients, and meditation content) that leans hard into the wellness-ritual positioning the brand is built on. The launch generated notable TikTok traction and a wave of "clean girl" and Zara-dupe-comparison content, and the collection's AI-generated campaign imagery sparked pushback from fragrance-wearers commenters.